the swash register

Bookmark your GMail Messages

2009-05-04T18:14:00.001-04:00

I recently discovered you can bookmark you GMail messages. You may ask why you'd ever need to do this. Suppose you are looking for a specific email which is buried in your GMail inbox (which maybe 45% full!). When you find and open the message, the URL in your browser URL bar is unique to the email, and it can be saved as a bookmark. Later when you want to open the same message again, just open the bookmark you saved.
I think I'll find this useful when I get receipts for things I buy on the web. The receipts usually have a link to tracking packages or order status. I can bookmark the email making it easier for me to check later -- Beats having to do a search again.

How to Use Twitlet from the iPhone

2009-03-24T23:33:00.003-04:00

Every now and then when I am browsing through websites on my iPhone, I have felt like Tweeting the website or the webpage link in a Twitter post. Its very easy to do this from your desktop via numerous tools - TweetDeck, Twitter website, etc. But on the phone, the only way to send a link to Twitter has been via SMS. But with no cut/paste in the iPhone (at least so far), I just didn't know of a way to send a link to Twitter without using SMS.

On the desktop, I have found the Twitlet bookmarklet to be the fastest way to tweet a link. But I tried it on the iPhone - it works like a champ. I didn't know earlier (and many probably still don't know) that some bookmarklets work on the iPhone browser too.

So try the Twitlet bookmarklet on the iPhone.

Follow the following steps:

Create a Twitlet Bookmarklet with your Twitter account info in your Safari browser on your laptop/desktop computer which you use to sync your iPhone.
In iTunes, in your Device page, under the Info tab, select Sync bookmarks with Safari.
Sync your iPhone.
Now, when you are browsing on the iPhone, and you come across a webpage you want to tweet, simply open your bookmarks and select the Twitlet bookmark.
A popup will show where you can tweet the page using the Twitlet. Even the #this syntax works to include the URL

For your convenience I am including a screenshot of the Twitlet bookmarklet in action in the iPhone.

Readability Bookmarklet Makes Reading a Clean Experience

2009-03-24T23:13:00.007-04:00

If you are like me, you find your favorite websites or blogs more and more cluttered each day. I usually find articles and news items in websites like CNN, or blogs in a slender column on the left of the browser page, with a smattering of ads, links, flash widgets, Google ads, and other such annoyances all over the body of the article and to the right of the article.

The Readability Bookmarklet has taken care of this headache for me. Save this bookmarklet in your browser link bar and click it when you want your reading to be a "clean" experience. It simply removes the clutter around the main body text you want to read, changes to font to a larger, easily readable one, and provides a clean white background. I am not kidding, it makes a world of a difference. And not to forget, its a much cleaner format should you decide to print the article too. (Added benefit, you might save some trees by not printing the random junk a.k.a. ads, and banners etc)

You can customize your bookmarklet to show you your article in any of the following formats: Newspaper, eBook, Novel, and Terminal. It allows you to select your text size, and the margin widths. I suggest you check out the Readability experiment website, the video within, and follow through to the bookmarklet setup page. You wont regret it.

And now to show you an example, I am uploading a screen shot of the browser with a news article open on CNN.com. The first picture is the regular webpage. The second one shows what the Readability Bookmarklet does to enhance your reading experience.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

New meaning to jump suits

2009-02-12T00:02:00.002-05:00

Short post here at midnight. Check out this video of guys jumping off cliffs wearing wing suits.

At the first sign of bad economy

2008-12-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

On a recent US Airways flight, I noticed this when I lowered the tray table. You know the airlines are not doing well when they have started making money off of the tray tables with commercial ads. Not to mention the $2 I had to pay for a can of coke. Peanuts don't come with your drink.

Speeches left me speechless

2008-11-09T19:23:00.002-05:00

The election night speeches left me speechless...both of them. I thought, like many, McCain's speech was very well balanced, and he left on a gracious note. I thought Obama's speech was, as expected, perfect. Nothing less was expected. For my own convenience, should I feel the need to see them again, I am posting both the speeches here...in order.

Fastest Browser: TheWorld is Quite Enough

2008-10-27T11:16:00.004-04:00

A hardly known browser TheWorld has impressed me. Frustrated with the sluggish memory hogging Firefox, I tried quite a few browsers out there. I talked about Safari for Windows before and thought it was quite fast. And now we have Google's Chrome which I think is fast too. But quite a few months ago, I chanced upon TheWorld browser, which I continue to use despite all the other mainstream browsers. This Chinese browser uses the IE engine, is extremely small in size, offers tabbed browsing and a no extra frills browsing experience, really really fast. One big advantage for me is when I use it at work, all the Intranet websites that only IE compliant dont have a problem showing up in TheWorld browser. Now the only warning is, it is based on IE 6.0 so some websites (rarely) don't show up properly, but if you want a fast browsing experience (yes, sometimes faster than Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE), without a large install file (there is a no-install version too) try it out. Did I mention, it opens on my machine within a second.

Finally a Speakerphone That Works - Motorokr T505

2008-10-18T23:54:00.001-04:00

I vote Bluetooth as one of the most bothersome consumer wireless protocols to date. Yes, some may argue there may have been others, but none have really caused as much frustration for me as the damn Bluetooth headset for my cellphone.

I used one for almost a year with all the irritations that came with it - Needed to charge it using a tiny charger tip that was unique to the device, people on the other end could not hear me when the battery was low, the thing would not fit in my ear properly, and always had the nagging feeling a device transmitting at 2.4GHz almost half inserted into my brain was doing a better job at cooking my brain!

Recently, with some of my team members at work situated in Ireland, morning conference calls have been plenty. And of course, they have to coincide with my commute to work (yes, I know, those who know me point out its not really a "morning" commute!). Having given up on BT headsets, I reverted back to the old faithful, yet unfitting-in-my-tiny-ears wired headset that came with my Blackberry. But the wire dropping down the side of my face, and getting entangled with the rest of the wires in my car was still irritating. Ok, enough background. I have now found, bought, used, and tested the perfect device for my car. The Motorokr T505 Bluetooth Speakerphone. I vote this to be one of the must-haves for gadget fiends out there. This thing looks like a space-age garage door opener, clips on to the visor, and pairs with your Bluetooth enabled cellphone in a jiffy. The device has a built-in speaker that is amply loud and clear (mind you, louder than the speaker on the Blackberry 8800 which many believe to have one of the best spearkerphone capabilities). The microphone is sensitive, and in a few conversations, the person on the other end could not tell I was on a speakerphone. The T505 packs in impressive echo and noise cancellation that helps you be heard clearly on the other end without any annoying feedback. Now, here is the kicker -- you can press a button on the device, a sexy British woman's voice announces an unused FM radio station that the device dynamically finds and starts transmitting at, for your car's radio. This allows the speakers of your car to take over -- the person you are talking to can be heard over the car's audio system, while the microphone on the device continues functioning. Voila! There you go -- fancy car bluetooth system that you can use even in your Ford Pinto! Trust me the device works well.

A few things I wish it had -- should have given you the choice of your own FM station, a little LCD screen to show the frequency, the power ON and the FM station buttons on the front of the unit.
Sidenote: It will also transmit over the air any music from your phone to the FM station; that is if your phone has audio over Bluetooth.
Check out other specs here and buy from Amazon (thats where I found it to be the cheapest).

PS: I don't work for Motorola although this blog post makes it look like they paid me fifty bucks to write this post.

too = two... Sergey Brin's new blog

2008-09-18T19:25:00.001-04:00

too

Sergey Brin has launched his own personal blog. He is talking about Parkinson's Disease, his risk of getting the disease, and some other posts. The blog is very new so doesn't have much content but I think I will be reading it fairly regularly. It's called TOO, kinda like google is malformed googol, Too is played off of Two. According to him on his first post, Two = in addition = his life outside of work.

Sidenote: Really ugly blog design, cannot believe of all the standard templates Blogger has, he chose something that's this hard to read.

Free WiFi at Denver Intl Airport

2008-09-11T19:51:00.002-04:00

Nothing like free wifi at an airport where you might be waiting for what feels like a lifetime to get a flight. At Denver, I was suprised to find free WiFi. It connected pretty fast, and then I noticed how they are paying for this. Simple. Through advertising. I know it sounds very 1995, but, for a frequent traveler like me, its a boon. I don't mind the one inch wide banner on the top of the browser as long as I get the job done. Since I travel mostly for business, I can get reimbursed for paid WiFi, but the hassle is too much -- pull out the credit card, enter all the information, wait for it to process, then get access to the internet (sometimes a weak signal, not worth the money), and of course, remembering to expense it a month later when I do my expenses seems hardly worth it. For now, I am blogging from Denver International Airport, and owe it to the colorful banner ad you see in the screenshot. Are you going to ever do this Boston Logan Intl Airport!?

drive pricing: I am spending money to get to work!!!

2008-07-10T18:07:00.000-04:00

drive pricing
I am spending way too much money to get to work. This website calculates based on your driving distance, the zip-code where you fill gas, and your car's fuel efficiency to do the simple math we never bother to do. Which is why I didn't know I spend almost $16/day getting to+from work. That's almost $350 a month. This I will factor in for sure the next time I ask for a raise.

Wake up Rogers! Your customers know better

2008-06-09T22:11:00.004-04:00

Ha ha! This is really funny. After all the announcements on the upcoming iPhone 3G (releasing on July 11th), Rogers Canada (their largest wireless company) has on it's website "Something Really Big is Coming July 11th"....no, seriously, what is it? The suspense is killing me!

Check out the screenshot.

What is Garmin smoking? Can I have some?

2008-05-05T01:00:00.000-04:00

No, seriously, what is Garmin smoking? With the 3G iPhone with GPS, almost around the corner, for $200, why would anyone buy this. Okay, maybe I am missing something here, but $500 is too much for any phone in my opinion.
Garmin Nuvifone hitting AT&T for $500 plus? - Engadget

$200, 3G, GPS, the iPhone is a done deal for me

2008-05-04T03:06:00.000-04:00

Need I say more...
FORTUNE: Techland AT&T to cut the price of Apple’s new iPhone «

Stuff Indians Like

2008-04-17T00:25:00.001-04:00

My search for entertaining desi sites never ends. Today I have found that one desi blog/website that has the potential to keep me up the whole night. Its one of those blogs that makes you go "Oh! Please, please, please, can I contribute to this blog??! Please!?". I have already started to think of my own list of Stuff Indians Like.

Enjoy the blog for a while, come up with your own list, let me know in comments or email, repeat.

Five Myths About Drinking Water : NPR

2008-04-04T10:44:00.004-04:00

All these years people lied to me about drinking water...and as a result I chugged gigantic volumes of water over the years. I thought it was going to improve my skin, remove toxins, purify my blood (whatever that means), help lose weight, keep my memory robust, and do all sorts of good stuff. Now it's all useless. I feel cheated. :(

Five Myths About Drinking Water : NPR

R2 D2 will wake you up: Clocky

2008-03-27T00:41:00.002-04:00

Toin and I have been waking up using the alarm on my BlackBerry. While it does the job, you cannot imagine how painful it gets to maneuver the trackball to hit snooze. But can't try the snooze stunt with this little monster: Clocky. Clocky is kinda cute and freaky at the same time. The alarm clock will wake you up with a beeping alarm, and then after some time to keep you from snoozing, it will jump off the table...no seriously, I am not making this up...it really will jump up, and scurry away into a hiding place. Yes, you guessed it...it will beep and tweet like mad from its hiding place. But I can't buy it, Toin will kill the damn thing once she finds it the first morning. Not sure? Why not check out this pesky gremlin in action at YouTube.

Keep them questions coming - Prashnottarang

2008-03-27T00:05:00.004-04:00

This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel guilty...guilty of spending countless hours on the internet and not coming up such ingenious ideas for bridging the gap between the illiterate and the Internet. Prashnottarang or the Question Box is a very simple telephone intercom which requires no computer literacy (in fact, not even literacy). A user simply presses the green button, talks or asks a question, an Internet user (a volunteer) on the other end browses the web for an answer, and responds to the user of the box. This has started as a non-profit project in India (in two villages). These boxes are placed near a shop where people have easy access to it. Well, wont spoil the fun...read all about it here, Question Box. While you are at it, check out their Flickr page too.
Some ways I imagine the villagers would use it would be: to find out weather forecasts for the region, cricket scores, which politician has what agenda, and most of all, symptoms of diseases and other healthcare related information, etc etc. I am sure the list is infinite.
Mobile?: On the for-profit side, I thought I had heard of services where you can just call a service and get someone to find something out from the web. I have called my friends or my brother on numerous occasions to find out about an address on the web, or listings of movies in the area....i sure could have used a Question Box. Could there be a potential for a company like ChaCha (the search engine where a live quide chats with you) to have a version of their service accessible via a regular phone call. Those damn tiny qwerty buttons on my Blackberry don't make it fun to browse the web on the mini screen!

Quite Fast on FastCompany

2008-03-26T23:44:00.005-04:00

You know a social networking effort is in its infancy when my blog with only two posts shows up as one of the Featured Blogs! A few weeks back I had talked about how FastCompany had jumped on the social bus, with social networking type features including a blogging engine for anyone and everyone to write. So in a fit of experimentation, I started one on there. But quite amusing to see how it made it to the "top of the charts" so to say. So take a look at the screen shot to the left of this post in case you are too lazy to follow the link - and follow the link if you are really interested in knowing what I am writing about. Leave a comment or two.

Staple Free Stapler: No more "Where are the staples now!?"

2008-03-17T17:53:00.004-04:00

I will add this to the list of things I don't need but I badly want.
As with the other stuff on my list of things I don't need, I didn't know such a device existed. Remember the Ginsu knife that can cut through a shoe? Well, now add this to the collection. A stapler than staples up to 5 sheets of paper without staples. We might as well call this the Stapleless Stapler, or better yet, Stapleless-er!
ThinkGeek :: Staple Free Stapler

Safari, my favorite browser now

2008-03-13T18:30:00.006-04:00

I accidentally came across the Safari browser for Windows. My experience with other Apple software I have used in the past, namely iTunes, has been a tad bit frustrating, RAM wise. I was a bit hesitant to download and try the new browser. But then Firefox had become a royal pain in the ass to use (again RAM wise) anyways and I was just looking for a change, something faster, something cleaner, and something that would give me a good viewable area. I looked around the web for reviews on the Windows version of Safari and came across this article. I promptly downloaded the program. Call me a sucker for font smoothing, but when I saw the rendering Safari did for the webpages I was pleased. The browser looks cleaner, gives me more viewing area, and somehow makes reading on the screen much better. I also like how login windows drop down from the top panel, and generally the light blue highlight around text input fields makes me wanna input text...if you know what I mean. Some shortfalls include, no fancy RSS reader (just a simple single page showing the RSS items), no addons a la Firefox, no Sidebar a la Firefox, some websites may not open properly (very rare) and damn, no Google Toolbar available for Safari. But, I like doing more on the web (if you can believe it) via the Safari browser.

(I dont have an HD TV, but apparently you can browse the web with Safari HD, Apple TV, and nice big HD TV. )

Gramlee, online grammar check! Take that MSword

2008-03-12T18:00:00.005-04:00

Funny I was talking to a friend about this today. Many employer's most common complaint with fresh hires is the lack of decent business writing skills. Despite b-schools focussing a lot on students writing reports, business plans, memo-to-the-CEOs, and case analyses etc., employers everywhere still see that as the single-most deficient skill in incoming graduates. Softwares can only do so much. MSWord grammar check can be the most frustrating, and certainly not correct more than 50% of the time in my opinion. Yes, humans created language, and humans alone know best how to correct any errors therein. Grammar check is one thing, but easy readability is just completely something else. In comes, Gramlee. Real humans editing and correcting your words. One benefit I see right away - no more embarrassment in having a friend edit things for you. You simply submit your written passage, and for a meager amount, an expert on the other end poedits the mistakes, makes it easier to read and passes it back to you in 24 hours. Sweet! Where was this when I was writing my MBA entrance essays!

On a related note, take a look at this book too. Its been on my to-do list.

Alienware Android Cell Phone, First Pictures

2008-02-17T10:59:00.000-05:00

Google or no Google, Android or no Android, 3G or no 3G, I wouldn't be caught dead carrying this evil looking thing around. I cannot imagine walking into a customer meeting with this in my hand, and looking serious about my job. Check out the cheap looking thing here -- Alienware Android Cell Phone, First Pictures. In any case, this one is from Alienware (acquired by Dell), Apple is already big into the cell phone market, and Garmin announced its coming out with a 3G cell phone with built-in GPS. Seems like a big shakeout with traditional cell phone players getting left behind, only to be taken over by brands we didn't associate with mobile phones.

Fast Company hops onto the Social Bus

2008-02-14T00:05:00.009-05:00

Not sure why I browsed over to FastCompany.com but once there, I was pleasantly surprised by the new features. Fast Company has gone social. It pitches the idea of becoming a part of the business community, exchanging ideas with other readers on business issues, and engaging in activities like blogging, discussing in forums, answering posted questions etc. Its interesting to see how user based content is getting more and more adopted by websites as a strategy for making websites sticky. My take on this is: its a cross between Blogger/Wordpress, LinkedIn, a business magazine, discussion forum, and slow servers to host the applications.
Well, give it a try and see for yourself if you see the value. Its still quite new, and my test blog there "What's That Again?" showed up in the Featured Blogs section within minutes. It will be quite interesting to see how this latest social effort is faring in a few months. More updates on this coming soon.

Blogger Frustration

2008-02-11T18:42:00.001-05:00

I am super pissed with Blogger. I have spent the last two days trying to fix the template so my damn blog looks good...no, actually forget good, normal at the very least. I am frustrated with Blogger, but don't want to change where I blog mainly because I have been on this system for 7 years. Damn right! I started blogging when no one had even heard of blogs in the mainstream internet user base. Anyways...this is just a test post. I have had to delete a whole bunch of posts, and somehow I am just not happy. I have to insert an image to test it too. so here goes.